News

We began field work to examine estuarine response to extreme events during the El Niño winter season. Extreme events of interest include extreme sea level events caused by tides + waves + surge as well as runoff from storms with rainfall. Photos include instrument checks in August and deployments in November.

As part of a collaboration with SCCWRP (Southern California Coastal Water Research Project), funded by California Sea Grant, we are collaborating with a large group of scientists up and down the CA coastline to examine and compare estuarine response to extreme events that we expect to occur during this 2015-2016 El Niño winter season. 19 November 2015 we met at San Dieguito Lagoon to discuss our strategies and installation techniques for instrumentation and sampling.

15-16 October, 2015 Giddings attended the US CLIVAR (Climate Variability and Predictability Program) meeting entitled: Translating Process Understanding to Improve Climate Models held at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (NOAA GFDL). At this meeting Giddings and several other scientist who study oceanic and atmospheric processes gathered with scientists from National modeling centers to discuss how to improve representation of smaller-scale processes in global models. GFDL is one of those modeling centers which includes scientists from NOAA and Princeton, however other modeling centers were represented including NCAR, NOAA NCEP, NASA GISS, GMAO, DOE ACME, and ONR. It was a very interesting and fruitful meeting with a lot of wonderful scientific discussions.

Early September we deployed instruments in the Tijuana Estuary as part of the CSIDE (Cross Surfzone/Inner-shelf Dye Exchange) experiment. The dye releases will be on the coast but we would like to better understand the interaction of the nearshore with the estuary. By instrumenting the estuary, we can directly look at nearshore/estuarine connectivity and estuarine dispersion.

Check out the major experiment that the Giddings lab is working on with the Feddersen lab to examine the exchange between the surfzone and a stratified inner-shelf. The experiment prep work is in full gear and preliminary models are up and running!

We had a full afternoon of coastal oceanography science discussions followed by dinner by the beach with (from left) Sarah Giddings, Madeleine Harvey, Angelica Gilroy, Emma Reid, Kristen Davis, and Aryan Safaie. Not pictured are Geno Pawlak and Andre Amador who joined in the conversations as well!

June 7-12 Dr. Giddings and Angelica attended the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Coastal Ocean Modeling. GRCs are intended for a small number of participants to present and discuss new, unpublished research. The environment fosters interaction between senior and junior scientists, as well as graduate students. Sessions are geared toward highlighting the most cutting-edge scientific methods and results while facilitating healthy discussion and debate.

Dr. Giddings gave an invited talk on using numerical models to capture the dynamics of ocean-estuarine interactions. The photo here includes all attendees. Invited speakers who presented on model development and/or application are pictured in the front row, behind the conference Chair and Vice Chair. All other participants presented posters. Angelica’s poster displayed her most recent work on assessing the impact of wave forcing on small river plumes.

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Thursday, 12 March, 2015, Angelica (second from right) introduced UCSD Chancellor Emerita Marye Anne Fox

Event organizers and invited speakers. From left to right: Erika McBride, Marye Anne Fox, Ashley Gardner, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, Cil Pleman, Angelica Gilroy, Paul Memije.

(second from left) at the Navy’s Southwest Regional Maintenance Center (SWRMC) Women’s History Month Event.  SWRMC is the largest and most diverse intermediate maintenance activity. The command provides superior ship maintenance, modernization, and technical support to over 100 surface ships, submarines, shore activities and other commands of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.  Among the event attendees was the commanding officer, engineer, astronaut, diver, and military officer, CAPT Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper (fourth from right).  Other audience members included Engineers, Shipbuilding Specialists, Engineering/ Electronic Technicians, Contract Specialists, Quality Assurance, and Management Analysts.

The event was comprised of slideshows, presentations, and interactive sessions intended to inform the audience of the contributions women have made to societal advancement across multiple disciplines.  SWRMC’s Multi-cultural Committee, headed by Paul Memije (far right), partnered with Cil Pleman (third from right) and Erika McBride (far left) from Commander Pacific Fleet’s Human Resource Office Southwest to bring two distinguished guest speakers to the event: Spokeswoman for the Women’s History Museum of California, Ashley Gardner (third from left), and Dr. Fox.  Each speaker gave both historical perspectives as well as anecdotes from their own intriguing personal experiences.  The event was very well received and all of the audience members admitted to learning something new.  CAPT Stefanyshyn-Piper closed the event by stating that women’s history is not just women’s history—it’s our history.

21 March 2015. Giddings and SIO graduate students Julia, May-Linn, Sasha, Erica, and Shantong, joined with the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve (TRNERR) team to present hands-on experiments to kids and parents at the San Diego Science EXPO Day. It was a fun filled day with exhibitors presenting hands-on STEM experiences ranging from operating and building robots to making concrete. There were even math rap and dance performances! With over 20,000 participants, it was an amazing day of science and fun. The TRNERR group had a demo where kids dug through fake mud cores to search for the various creatures that live in estuary marshes and microscopes to check them out in more detail. While the TRNERR group covered the biology, we covered the physics of estuaries and guided kids in experiments of what happens when river water meets the ocean.Read More

Angelica Gilroy helped organize the Giddings’ group and some other Scripps students to attend San Diego’s Expanding Your Horizon conference. Expanding Your Horizons is an annual conference aimed to interest girls, aged 11 to 16, in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in fun, informative, hands-on workshops. The goals include helping the girls learn about STEM based careers, providing them with positive role models, and showing the excitement and fun of science. Our group presented a series of hands-on activities demonstrating the effects of density in mini water tanks. This included having the girls explore gravity currents, intrusions, stratification, internal waves, melting ice, and much more. We related the dynamics they were seeing to oceanic processes that we all study. Everyone had a great time, the scientists and the students… in fact we had a hard time prying the girls (and sometimes ourselves!) away from the tanks!

Above is the group of scientists leading our workshop. From left to right: Julia Fiedler, Angelica Gilroy, Olavo Marques, Isabella Arzeno, and Sarah Giddings.

Left: an intrusion layer of intermediate density (blue) between a dense (red) and fresh (clear) layer about to hit the wall of the mini-tank.